（続）村上春樹の新作の書評を読んで

WSJの書評は好意的でしたが、Philip Gabriel's translation is typically slickと翻訳自体は問題にされていませんが、陳腐な表現がところどころ使われていることにうんざりしているようでした。

BOOKSHELF
Book Review: 'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage' by Haruki Murakami
His new tale of a searching train engineer is tidy, charming and ingenious.
By TOBY LICHTIG
Aug. 21, 2014 12:39 p.m. ET

"Colorless Tsukuru" is not without its irritations: the author's timeworn oddities of phrasing, airy philosophy and detours into the whimsy. Philip Gabriel's translation is typically slick, but there is not much he can do with similes such as "anxiety raised its head, like a jagged ominous rock" or "like tying a horse to a hitching post, he tied the dog's leash to a streetlight." The natural-world imagery is either eccentrically specific or terribly banal. An unpleasant possibility hangs in the air "like a small, thick, lenticular cloud"; a teenage girl "burst[s] into bloom, like a garden in spring"; an orgasm engulfs Tsukuru "like a huge wave crashing over him."

同じような指摘はガーディアンの書評にもありました。また、英国版も米国つづりのようでイギリス人は気になるようですね。

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami – review
Full of ambiguity and sex – all Murakami's signature flourishes are here
Mark Lawson
The Guardian, Wednesday 6 August 2014 09.00 BST

A reader without Japanese is completely at the mercy of Murakami's translators; when the prose lowers to cliche or commonplace – as it seems to do surprisingly often in this novel – there is no way of knowing if Philip Gabriel is accurately representing his client or letting him down. A further frustration for the British reader is that the publishers here have maintained the spelling and vocabulary of the US edition – "fit", "gotten", "sophomore" – which then leads to another culture clash during paragraphs about the significance of the Japanese pronouns and honorifics in use during conversations.

今回訳したPhilip Gabrielさんの記事がネットにありました。翻訳のプロセス、苦労なども話してくれています。Murakami and/or his staff read through the first draft of my translations and make suggestions and changesとありますので、村上春樹も英訳については多少関わっているようです。

Philip Gabriel on translating Haruki Murakami
IPSHITA MITRA, TNN | Jun 10, 2014, 12.00AM IST

Murakami, a writer 'found in translation'
"Murakami understands and appreciates the challenges of working between English and Japanese. He is always generous with his time. When I have questions, I run these by Murakami via email and he responds quickly to any parts I have trouble with. Murakami and/or his staff read through the first draft of my translations and make suggestions and changes," says Philip.

翻訳の難しさを語っている部分が以下です。日本語と英語の語順の違い、生活スタイル、振る舞いなどを含めた文化の違いなどを挙げています。

Bridging the gap in translation
How difficult is it to bridge the structural and grammatical gap between English and Japanese for a translator? "It's a real challenge. The order of information in Japanese is often nearly the reverse of English, I sometimes feel I'm giving away the punch line too soon when I translate a Japanese sentence into English. Cultural differences are the most difficult to get across in translation. Day to day lifestyle differences, differences in interpersonal interaction, etc. are aspects of life and writing that Japanese readers take for granted but which become a kind of stumbling block to understanding for English readers. As an academic I sometimes wish I could add footnotes, but commercial publishers usually don't allow these," laments Philip. Apart from novels, Philip Gabriel has also translated Murakami's short stories and works of non-fiction. Ask him about the most challenging work of all and Philip replies, "I did find Underground (2000) a challenge because I was dealing with the voices of eight different people—the cult members he (Murakami) interviewed—as well as Murakami's voice as narrator and interviewer. But probably the most challenging work of all was Kafka on the Shore because of the unique voices of the two main characters—Kafka and Nakata. These characters were unlike any in his previous works."

こつこつ３、４ページずつ早朝に訳していると、毎日やる量を決めて進めていると語っています。

Do his translators too follow a strict fitness routine like him? "I certainly am not the athlete he is, but I do try to work at a set time, mostly early morning, and translate a set number of pages per day (a rough draft of 3-4 pages). It is daunting sometimes to consider translating books of 500-600 pages and I try to take it one day at a time. If you look up at the distant peak of the mountain you're climbing you can get dizzy and discouraged, so I train my gaze on the path before me and take a step at a time. I guess I'm more a hiker or walker than a runner," reveals Philip

If you look up at the distant peak of the mountain you're climbing you can get dizzy and discouraged, so I train my gaze on the path before me and take a step at a time.（かなたにある山の頂を登山中に見上げると、呆然としてやる気がそがれるかもしれません。ですから、目の前にある道だけを見て一歩ずつ進むようにしています）という部分は英語学習にも通じますね。